FuturED Finance

FuturED Content Team

What Can Higher Ed Learn from a Chef? (part 3)

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The picture shows a nearly empty restaurant to represent the value of analyzing course offerings to adapt to enrollment declines.

Understand and project demand (enrollment).

What if I have 15 entrees and customers rarely order a couple of them? Also, one of the main ingredients is not used for any another entrée. Would you discontinue the item?

Why is it that in higher education, we continue to add to our menu without retiring offerings or majors despite changes in enrollment?

This is critical because we expect a 10-20 percent drop in the number of traditional age students over the next 12 years. It is time to examine our menu while considering what our enrollment will be 4-10 years from now. After all, it is easier to scale up than scale down. 

Remember, finance is a lagging indicator. It tallies what has already happened. By using that information to show trends and predict the future, we provide real value.

In higher education, our biggest challenge is that it takes us 2-4 years to remove a menu item. When my class size goes from 22 to 18 students, I can’t just order less. I can try to create specials and promote the offering to customers. Knowing that my margin is lower on some offerings but balances out across the menu allows me the flexibility to make more informed decisions.

As our class sizes get smaller, the cost of our support structure is not declining, thus the cost per student is rising. All of this makes it more critical than ever to understand and project demand. This is a conversation that expands well beyond the realm of finance.

Many of us have increased our menu offerings over time to meet customer demand, but we have not removed items from our menu, or changed the recipe for a dish that is not as popular as it once was.

Understand the total cost of the experience and set expectations for metrics related to enrollment and each role.

Let’s move out of the kitchen, to the front of house. Have you ever been to a restaurant where the food is amazing, but the service is terrible? It takes forever for them to take your order. Your drinks arrive wrong, and it is so loud you can’t hear. The food is the draw but without a positive experience the customer will not come back.

But that experience is different for each of us. My daughter loves Chipotle, and I love seafood and waterfront dining. Each type of experience has a different cost structure. 

Customer support is less labor intensive for Chipotle because they are not going to each table multiple times and do not have dishes to wash. What if Chipotle tried to compete with fine waterfront dining and offered white linen tablecloths and custom cocktails? Would their cost structure change? Would customers be willing to pay more for this experience?

Many institutions have tried to compete by offering a competitive campus experience. The problem is pricing. Small institutions can’t take advantage of volume and offer variety, so decide what you are known for and double down on strategy. 

Restaurants generally have a higher margin on the add-ons, like wine and cocktails, like auxiliaries in higher education. We know that the food is why customers come, and while they are having dinner, they will probably order a drink.

It’s important to understand the difference in margin between the food and the bar. How many of you know the margin of each? How many of you make a profit on room & board, but lose money on the instruction? We cannot have one without the other, but how do we reconcile this?

Each part of the restaurant has its role. The chef and kitchen staff should know what is expected of them in terms of quality, and margin metrics. If we don’t tell the kitchen (chair/deans) our expectations for margin, our market research data, or our predictions, the chef will continue to provide excellent meals (classes), no matter the cost. So be sure to understand each role, how they fit together and what expectations are for each role.  

Give the customer what they want, not what we think they should have.

I’ve worked with over 40 institutions during the past 25 years and have served as an adjunct faculty member as well. It always puzzles me that we rarely talk about what the customer wants and what the data tells us about what the customer wants. Instead, we talk about what the customer should get because the chef knows best. The reality needs to be somewhere in between. The institution should understand clearly what type of experience they provide, and what their customers expect. Then, they should set expectations and metrics for the kitchen (academics) and front of house (auxiliary and student services). They should monitor metrics to see how customers are responding (enrollment) and adjust the offerings accordingly.

While on the topic of what the customer wants, some people love sports bars. I like to sit at the bar of any restaurant and have an appetizer and wine. I may go back again with friends and stay for a full dinner. Why do we not consider this option in higher education? Credentials, like certificates, with a clear path to convert to a degree are like trying an appetizer and coming back for more. Sixty percent of Americans do not attend college. Would this be a more accessible pathway?

I leave you to ponder what your customer wants. Is it a fine dining experience at a higher price tag, a sports bar with lots of action and simple food, or perhaps a highly specialized experience like an extensive raw bar selection. There is room for all. Decide which one you are and double down on that to give each customer what they want, not what you think they should have.

If you are interested in the common metrics that we use to analyze the cost and revenue drivers for educational institutions, click here to download.

Did you miss the other articles in our chef series, here are parts one and two.

Photo by shawnanggg on Unsplash

What Can Higher Ed Learn from a Chef? (part 2)

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Is the star of the show the main dish or side dishes?

Think back to your recent restaurant experience. Did you choose a dish based on the main course (chicken, fish) or the sides (rice, potato, salad)? I’ll bet it was the main dish. Some colleges and universities have added so many student activities, sports, and electives to their lists of ingredients that the side dishes cost as much or more than the cost of the main dish. When I examine the change in our cost structure over time, I wonder if the stars of the show on our campuses have become the side dishes. 

What do the customers want?

Think of your favorite restaurant, why do you go there? Is it proximity to home, your love of seafood, the view of the water, or the prices? Now think about your institution, why does the customer (student/parent) come to your institution? For most students, it is a particular offering, combined with an atmosphere they want (small campus, large campus), in a location they want (in a city, near mountains, far from home). More and more, pricing, and future employment are becoming factors. I have 3 college age children and I have seen a dramatic shift in the level of concern they and their friends express about the cost of education and the impact it has on their decision. I am sure we have all heard more from parents and the public about the importance of a career upon graduation.  

Understand what you are, and why your students choose your institution (and stay) and be true to that. Engage more in the consideration of what other customers (like parents and employers) want from you and consider investing in that, even if means you need to give up another item on the menu. 

Set the menu based on seating capacity.

Let’s think about physical space and its connection to the menu. Ideally, the restaurant would be busy during peak hours with full tables and quick turnover. Much like our institutions, restaurants have significant off-peak hours and days when the tables are empty. Some restaurants supplement their businesses with private events the way some institutions do. Partnering with employers or local organizations can provide additional income and local engagement. The question is can we repackage our offerings to generate interest during off-peak times, without impacting our brand?  

If the restaurant seats 40 customers and tables turn over 2.5 times at dinner, they’ll serve 500 meals a week. If the menu includes 50 entrees, I will make an average of 10 orders of each item per week. We all know some items will be more or less popular than that. This is where we run into problems. We order ingredients for entrees (courses) that are not as popular, and we then throw the ingredients away (think of low enrolled classes).    

How many entrees are generally on the menu of your favorite restaurant? Most restaurants have 15 entrees or less on their menu. The goal is to offer enough variety to attract customers but ensure items are ordered with enough frequency that ingredients do not go to waste. At 500 meals per week, across 15 entrée choices, that is an average of 33 orders of each item per week. If you take the total number of students, divide by the number of required courses, then divide by the section break-even number, you’ll know how many majors you can support.

This is not an exact science but will help to make those strategic decisions about whether to sunset degree programs.   

We may have a significant amount of physical capacity, but our customer demand may be lower than our physical capacity. Based on your demand and capacity, how many menu items are ideal?

Did you miss part one of our Chef series? Read it now.

Stay tuned for the next article in our Chef series, Understanding and Projecting Demand.

Interested in the metrics we use to analyze cost and revenue drivers for educational institutions? Click here to download.

What Can Higher Ed Learn from a Chef? (part 1)

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The picture is of a chef preparing food. The article is about higher ed learning from a chef.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the annual JP Morgan Higher Education Summit and share insights with attendees over lunch. Over the past 18 months, our work has been shifting very heavily toward metrics. We use this data to help understand how much it costs to educate, house, and feed each student and what that looks like over time. Historically, I spent much of my time with CFOs. These days, the presidents and provosts are calling me. They understand the imperative to right size each higher ed institution to prepare for the demographic cliff, but not enough to make strategic cost-cutting choices.

I liken these issues with the challenges a chef has when creating a menu that enables the restaurant to thrive. I’ve devised several steps you can take to help you understand the challenges specific to your institution.

What if I told you that the last time you went out to eat, the restaurant was losing money?  Food and labor costs have increased dramatically, but the managers worry about raising prices for fear of losing customers. Sound familiar? I have a challenge for you. I need you to help me solve this problem for the restaurant. What would you do differently to make the restaurant profitable? If you ponder this question, you will come up with incremental changes that may or may not move the needle. When I do this exercise live, we find that even financially savvy people do not feel knowledgeable enough to solve these problems. This is exactly how our provosts, presidents, deans, and other leaders feel when we ask them to cut costs, especially across the board cuts. They know what each person in their area does, but they do not understand whether the cost of that work adds worthwhile value to students.

Our metrics help shed light on these dynamics and provide clarity for making strategic decisions. Here are some tips I learned from my days as a sous chef to help you think differently about higher ed. As you read this, I want you to draw parallels to your campus.

Speak a common language.

We all know partnership is critical to effecting change. We also know that we in finance do not have the expertise to make these changes alone. However, we do have the ability to enable and influence the academic side, the president, and our leadership team. But it requires us to translate our message into the language others speak. Let me give you an example. If I manage a restaurant that is losing money and customers, and I share this information with my chef, what response will I get? I am likely to hear suggestions like “We need to do more marketing” or “Offer more specials and discounts”. In other words, “I’m making a great meal, and that is my role, you need to bring more customers in”. What if I analyzed the menu over the past few years? I see that on average, beef Bourguignon orders have decreased to about 6 orders a week. And yet, the dish remains on the menu.

I can even go one step further and show that the cost of producing 60% of our entrees is more than we charge for them. At this point I can ask the chef to examine the ingredients and look for opportunities to save money.

 What if I supply the cost for producing each item on the menu, broken out by the underlying ingredients? I’d then ask them to make each dish based on a $10 gross margin.

The point is the chef can speak the language of food and ingredients. By converting total dollars into units they understand, like the cost of a menu item, an ingredient, and number of weekly sales, I bring them into the profit conversation.

I hope you are drawing parallels to higher ed and your campus. The menu items are the degree, and the underlying sections are the ingredients. When I’ve shared the average cost per section and the break-even number of students, I have heard faculty, deans, and provosts express gratitude for “finally helping them understand the cost structure of their programs”. So, find a common language and speak it.

Understand the cost of each menu item.

Each menu item should generate a profit but not necessarily the same profit. Remember, expenditures encompass not only the cost of ingredients, but also the cost of restaurant utilities, table linens, staff salaries, etc. Each menu item will have a different margin and the menu needs to reflect the chef’s talent and specialties. When the food arrives at the table will the customer think the experience was worth the price?          

Do you understand the margin of each program?

In restaurants, we change the menu each season to take advantage of fresh, seasonal ingredients and to keep our customers coming back for more. That doesn’t mean we have to spend frivolously. The chef I worked under explained the trick to delivering meals quickly and profitably was using the smallest number of ingredients. He mixed and matched those ingredients in different menu items to create delicious and varied meals. Fewer ingredients meant lower inventory cost, less food waste, and shorter wait times.

The entire menu had to be priced out in advance. Each menu item needed to generate a target profit. Of course, the food had to be appealing and show off the talent of the chef. As you can imagine, the cost of ingredients can vary. When developing the menu, we consider the cost of each ingredient and choose brand name, vendor, and portion size. We bought whole chickens, rather than parts, and used legs, thighs, and breasts differently. We also used the remaining parts to make broth for soups and glazes. Many ingredients did double duty. Can you see how this relates to higher ed?

What’s the break-even point?

Our analysis often shows that we have some menu items that are not ordered enough to support their cost. We also find that too many outliers result in waste. Think about the number of students per class. How many sections run with numbers way below the break-even point? Is that because we offer too wide a variety of courses? Do we keep adding them without removing any? Are we carrying ingredients not required for any item on the menu or are these classes required for a major? Should we continue to offer this major if so few seek it out?

While we in higher ed can’t exactly change the menu each season, we can examine our menu each year and determine whether we need to change the menu or the underlying ingredients. 

Stay tuned for the next article in our Chef series, Is the Star of the Show the Main Dish or the Side Dishes?

If you are interested in the common metrics we use to analyze the cost and revenue drivers for educational institutions, click here to download.

Photo by Pylyp Sukhenko on Unsplash

“a day in the life of…”

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The picture shows someone solving a Rubik's cube to represent the desire to understand the problem and solve it.

I love to make things better. When I walk into a store and get stuck in line for a long time, I think about ways to reduce the wait. The self-checkout, express lines for 15 items or less, and the customer service desk for returns are concepts retail experts devised to reduce time in lines. They came about because someone tried to understand the problem. They examined the specific activity and identified ways of moving certain anomalies through the line differently.  

When the problem is visible, it is easier to see the problem, determine the underlying cause, and formulate a solution. But how do we do this in higher education where the issues are not so visible? 

I am listening to MasterClass sessions on business motivation with Rosalind Brewer. She was the CEO of several Fortune 500 companies like Starbucks, Walmart, Walgreens. In this series, she presents the methods she used to innovate. She tells a story about showing up at a Wal Mart store and seeing them struggle to unload boxes. As she began helping unload the boxes, she listened, watched, and asked questions. Brewer wanted to understand the problem first before attempting to fix it.

Ask questions and listen

Brewer, and other CEOs noted for turning struggling companies around, value the importance of understanding the problem and the business. They learn the challenges of each company by asking questions and listening to those closest to the products and customers. That way, they continuously improve the company and the consumer experience.

Higher education is different. We don’t always have the chance to be customers at our own institutions. How can we make the changes vital to turn struggling institutions around?

The exercise

Let’s do an exercise I use in my business and innovation capstone called “a day in the life of… “.

The goal of this exercise is to empathize or truly understand the problem. Consider the issue of recycling and waste reduction on campus. First, we need to understand the entire timeline after a package arrives at the campus mailroom. A student picks up the package, brings it back to the dorm, and opens it. Then, the student discards the packaging, the cleaning service picks up the trash, and brings it to the recycling center or landfill. Now, we can look at each decision point and decide how best to provide easy ways to reduce, reuse, or recycle.

What if institutional leaders could be students for a month? What would we see that would help us provide a better experience and even save money? Taking a month out of our normal jobs is not an option, but what if we brought the students into our day? We could meet with graduating seniors, freshmen living away from home for the first time, or parents to learn what a day in their lives looks like.

Understand the problem and empathize

There are a few ground rules to this exercise. We must truly listen, ask questions, and most importantly, never defend our current methods. The reason you do something a certain way is not important. What is important is learning from the students’ perspective and being open and intentional about wanting to understand and address their needs.

Once you truly understand “a day in the life of…” you are in a much better position to solve not only the students’ needs, but the institution’s needs as well. What if we took this one step further and brought faculty and administration together in this exercise?      

Who do you want to spend “a day in the life of… “?

Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash

Why do turnaround plans take so long?

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The picture is of a road sign signaling a u-turn to represent a financial turnaround.

My colleagues and I are often asked by board members, “Why does it take so long to turnaround the financial health of the institution?” In corporate America, we make decisions to close stores, discontinue product lines, and lay people off each quarter to manage shareholder expectations. While there are many cultural considerations in this answer, I will not focus on that.

Focus on the turnaround process

  • Understand the current situation:
    • Examine assets, liabilities, revenue trends and cost structure trends. 
    • Anticipate short-term challenges, while identifying short-term solutions
    • Focus on long term sustainability. 
  • We will answer the questions:
  • What is your current financial picture?
  • What resources do we have and how long will they last?
  • How did we get here?

Identify trends and relationships

This is an important examination of the underlying data to identify trends and relationships relating to revenue, cost structure, profitability, and liquidity. It seeks to identify the relationship among the data.

  • How has the employee FTE (full time equivalent) changed in relation to the student FTE over time?
  • How has the square footage of facilities changed in relation to the student FTE over time?
  • What is the normalized profit or loss per student over time?

Set expectations

I like to set the expectation that we need at least two years of cash flow under the current deficit model as a “runway” for a turnaround plan. This is because it will take two years before we start to see bottom line impact and 3-5 years before we can achieve financial stability. Without this, there is little point of moving on to the next step.   

Enrollment trends

Once we understand our situation, we need to understand and predict the enrollment trend for the next 3-5 years. Let’s be honest with ourselves as we are looking over the current demographic cliff.  It is easier to scale up than to scale down, so scale down to your realistic levels now!  We also need to define the resources necessary to support that level of enrollment in terms of classrooms, dorms, faculty, and supporting services.  

  • What is your enrollment projected to be, not just this year, but 3-5 years out? 
  • How does that differ by major?
  • Based on the enrollment, what size campus do you need?
    • In terms of classrooms?
    • In terms of room and board?
  • What average size class will this result in?
  • What subjects are most impacted? 
  • How does this inform resource allocation by major? 
  • How does this inform resource allocation for supporting services (i.e. Athletics, student services, etc.)?

Balance the need to provide a quality education in a financially sustainable way. 

We generally recommend creating working groups for several areas to examine opportunities and quantify them in terms of dollars and time. 

In these working groups we examine our cost structure assuming these new enrollment levels, using some of the clues we gleaned from earlier steps to answer the questions: 

For many of us this reflects the need to modify our curriculum through reducing majors, minors or offering fewer sections. For others it is about offering more distribution channels through online, and employer sponsored programs. 

This step is arguably the most difficult and most time-consuming part of the turnaround process. It requires significant resources from all areas of the institution. But once completed, we are still not finished. 

Seek approval

Our structure of shared governance and accreditation require us to go through a multistep process to get feedback before we can ultimately affect these changes, but the more people involved in the earlier work, the easier this approval will be, including:  

  • Receiving Provost and Dean examination and input
  • Gaining administration review and approval
  • Getting faculty approval. If we are considering closing programs, or cancelling courses, that may mean reducing the faculty involved in those programs. Faculty work on multi-year contracts and may be unionized. There are penalties for cancelling contracts. 
  • Seeking accreditor approval for significant changes. By the time we complete this step we are likely a year into our process, and we have not even started to make the changes. 
  • Making changes to our enrollment process and course catalog
  • Implementing teach outs, new programs, program changes

Ultimately, we have a written contract with our students whereby they enrolled and paid tuition with the promise of completing a 4-year degree. This contract was likely signed 6 months before that 4-year clock started, thus it is a 4 ½ year contract. The timing of these changes will depend on the nature of the change. If we plan to eliminate programs or make substantial changes to programs, it could take several years before we see the impact on the bottom line.  

Of course, there is an option that we like to consider our last resort, called financial exigency. This is a term we try to say only behind closed doors in a sound-proof room. It is akin to the reorganization provided under bankruptcy. I don’t specialize in this, but the American Association of University Professors discusses this in more detail and provides some worthy considerations.

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Predictions for Higher Ed in 2023

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The picture shows a crystal ball to represent predictions for 2023 in higher ed.

Like many of you, I spend time every January planning for the year, thinking about my goals for my business, my personal life, and how I spend my time. Part of this process includes identifying what the top priorities will be for colleges and universities for the year. 

Last year, the top priorities involved information — accessing it quickly, precisely, and consistently. This included important initiatives around automating reports and developing automated budget and scenario tools. 

I assumed we would spend more time on implementation of automation tools than we did, but just as we started to receive the necessary information, we experienced the predicted drop in enrollment, forcing us to turn our attention elsewhere. To understand better about how colleges are dealing with enrollment issues, read this wonderful article by Goldie Blumenstyk in her newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

  1. Cost restructuring & analysis

Jumping from #2 in 2022, cost restructuring will be big in 2023. Over the past few years, colleges and universities have cut everything they could while preserving the student experience. It’s apparent we need to dig more deeply into our programs and their delivery to improve the student experience and overcome our financial challenges.

What did we do to attract students and enhance the value of education over the past 10 years?

  • Added new programs, both in-person and online
  • Created more options for double majors, minors, and concentrations 
  • Moved forward with construction projects to renovate or even expand classrooms and dorms 

What do we need to know now to plan for the next 10 years?

  • How will our students’ needs change now and over the next 10 years? 
  • Will off-campus housing continue to rise in popularity? Will students return to campus? What will they expect from that experience?
  • How will we respond to the continued decrease in enrollments and class sizes based on population decline?        
  • What will we do to make up for smaller class sizes and a more expensive delivery model?

2. Upskilling and succession planning

This topic didn’t even make the list last year. The number of retirements of baby boomers, the shortage of qualified finance professionals, and the increases in salary newer professionals demand combined to rocket it to number two. This is really putting a squeeze on our ability to get our work done. Recently, I wrote about succession planning with intentionality.

3. Automation

Dropping from the top spot last year, automation is still a priority, but enrollment decline and restructuring have taken precedence. As long-term plans solidify, automation will rise in urgency. In fact, I believe it is an important part of our succession and staffing plans and the key to making real time data driven decisions.   I like to stay positive. What are my predictions? Not all schools will survive these trends. However, I believe higher education will emerge stronger, not just financially but also in our ability to give students, parents, and employers the value they expect from higher education. 

What will the FuturED team do to be part of the solution?

We will focus on presenting articles that contain actionable examples you can take back to your institution to create a stronger financial and educational future. 

Do you agree with my predictions? Reach out to me on LinkedIn and let’s talk.

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Are you a lifelong learner? 

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I love to learn. Perhaps this makes me a lifelong learner. As a child, I did not care much for reading books or memorizing material for exams. I was not a good student, so I did not think of myself as a lifelong learner. 

I graduated from college 25 years ago. When I was younger, I was not sure there was a college path for me. I grew up in public housing as Becky Ortiz and dropped out of high school at 15 because family circumstances made it necessary for survival. I began to learn that I was capable of much more than I ever believed.  

I always loved learning about things I was interested in, like how to grow an orange tree from an orange I had just eaten, and watch it grow. My friend Sarah and I would take these seedlings and sell them to college students passing by on their way to classes at Cornell University. It was exciting to share our new creations with others. We would tell them they could plant the seedlings and grow fresh Florida oranges.   

Lifelong learning does not always look the same 

I differed from those college students because, after 8 years of working in restaurants, I went to college at the age of 24. First, I went to Monroe Community College, then St. John Fisher College. This is why education is so important to me. Now that love of learning manifests itself differently. I appreciate the way mechanical parts work and watch YouTube videos to learn how to fix my ice maker. I realize that I love to learn, but mostly about things connected to my life. I prefer taking new information and applying it immediately to my situation. I enjoy listening to or watching meaty content in short spurts. 

EACUBO 

Perhaps this is why the EACUBO (Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers) Annual Meeting is so exciting for me. I spend 3 days listening to financial leaders share stories of innovations they are implementing at their institutions, often to remedy challenges they faced. This year, I was even presenting with a client.     

I can attend the presentations I am most curious about and learn from others who have solved those challenges. In each instance, they were not solving challenges they had roadmaps for. There was no book to read. This was uncharted territory. They were not intimidated by what they did not know. Instead, they applied their learned skills, critical thinking, and a lot of hard work to reach a solution.      

One characteristic of a lifelong learner is a love of reading. This is probably because reading was historically the primary source of information. Now, with so many options like podcasts, videos, and personal interactions at conferences we can consume new information in other ways, apply it to our situations, and turn it into knowledge. I am a lifelong learner because I know knowledge gives me the power to do anything! 

Grief + Crisis Management = Transformational Change 

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When the pandemic began, I felt like a CBO (Chief Business Officer) without a university and a faculty member without a tenure track. On the faculty side, there was a sense of panic and loss. The challenges of teaching online, the inability to complete research projects, and the desire to see students learn weighed heavily. We were thrown into great confusion.   

There was an immediate need to learn how to teach online, something many never wanted. Could we find a way to integrate online learning seamlessly into our established processes? Many felt a sense of disconnectedness. Remember, this is a group of people who spent every day interacting with hundreds of students and colleagues. This group had not spent a great deal of time in virtual conferences. That all changed overnight.     

How grief and crisis management relate to post-COVID higher ed  

There is a connection between our reactions to the pandemic and the 5 stages of grief — denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. In the early part of the pandemic, we had no time to go through the first three stages. Circumstances thrust us directly into the latter two stages. It’s no surprise that later, we saw and still see faculty members and my colleagues in the business world exhibiting the first three stages, along with confusion, and frustration, all at once. The good news is, we are also seeing signs of bargaining. People are reaching out, telling stories, and finding meaning and acceptance.   

CBOs did not have the luxury of grieving; they were thrust directly into crisis management mode bearing the huge responsibility to “save the institution”. Behind the scenes, their jobs and realities changed overnight. They found themselves making tough decisions about the health and safety of students and staff, knowing that some of those decisions could cause long-term financial hardship for the institution.  

As finance professionals, we are trained to examine the finances and immediately dive into protection mode. Most of us have managed our institutions through a tough recession and know the unpleasant drill. This feels different. There is significant change on the horizon.     

In this examination, it occurs to me that there is a relationship between grief and crisis management. When we experience grief, it is generally because we experienced a loss that was beyond our control — a loved one, a job or something else. Sometimes this can be coupled with a crisis. How will I manage financially? Can I do this alone? Like the CBO, we can feel alone in our need to manage the crisis and work toward a solution. Often in crisis management, the loss is less personal. The crisis centers more on a sense of personal responsibility. CBOs feel the responsibility to take care of their teams and save the institution. This is a heavy load to bear.    

The fallout from the pandemic and its ongoing nature creates a challenge for financial teams. Will enrollment numbers ever go back to their previous levels? Is hybrid learning a fact of life? What challenges does that present to faculty members, students, and the financial health of the university? What opportunities will it bring?   

Are we on the verge of a transformational change?   

Bob Tipton’s 9 Stages of Transformational Change represent a merger of the stages of grief and crisis management, with grief representing the first 6 stages and crisis management, the final 3. Perhaps this is why transformational change can be so difficult. We all move through these stages at different paces.  

Perhaps, at a time like this, we can spend more time listening. Having empathy for the despair and skepticism on both sides will help us move together towards tolerance, acceptance, and agreement. Our challenge is time. We will not have the luxury of time as we devise options for our institutions. We need to find a way to reach over the divide now so we can move forward as one institution and better serve our students. After all, our students have been through a lot, too. They will expect something different from us and it’s our job to deliver.